+ The boy took them to the cliff where he had been on the +previous day. He told them all to be seated. +“It’s going to take awhile,” the boy said. +“We’re in no hurry,” the chief answered. “We are men of the +desert.” +The boy looked out at the horizon. There were mountains in the +distance. And there were dunes, rocks, and plants that insisted on +living where survival seemed impossible. There was the desert that +he had wandered for so many months; despite all that time, he knew +only a small part of it. Within that small part, he had found an +Englishman, caravans, tribal wars, and an oasis with fifty thousand +palm trees and three hundred wells. +“What do you want here today?” the desert asked him. “Didn’t +you spend enough time looking at me yesterday?” +“Somewhere you are holding the person I love,” the boy said. +“So, when I look out over your sands, I am also looking at her. I want +to return to her, and I need your help so that I can turn myself into +the wind.” +“What is love?” the desert asked. +“Love is the falcon’s flight over your sands. Because for him, you +are a green field, from which he always returns with game. He +knows your rocks, your dunes, and your mountains, and you are +generous to him.” +“The falcon’s beak carries bits of me, myself,” the desert said. +“For years, I care for his game, feeding it with the little water that I +have, and then I show him where the game is. And, one day, as I +enjoy the fact that his game thrives on my surface, the falcon dives +out of the sky, and takes away what I’ve created.” +“But that’s why you created the game in the first place,” the boy +answered. “To nourish the falcon. And the falcon then nourishes +man. And, eventually, man will nourish your sands, where the game +will once again flourish. That’s how the world goes.” +“So is that what love is?” +“Yes, that’s what love is. It’s what makes the game become the +falcon, the falcon become man, and man, in his turn, the desert. It’s +what turns lead into gold, and makes the gold return to the earth.” +“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” the desert said. +“But you can at least understand that somewhere in your sands +there is a woman waiting for me. And that’s why I have to turn +myself into the wind.” +The desert didn’t answer him for a few moments. +Then it told him, “I’ll give you my sands to help the wind to blow, +but, alone, I can’t do anything. You have to ask for help from the +wind.” +A breeze began to blow. The tribesmen watched the boy from a +distance, talking among themselves in a language that the boy +couldn’t understand. +The alchemist smiled. +The wind approached the boy and touched his face. It knew of +the boy’s talk with the desert, because the winds know everything. +They blow across the world without a birthplace, and with no place +to die. +“Help me,” the boy said. “One day you carried the voice of my +loved one to me.” +“Who taught you to speak the language of the desert and the +wind?” +“My heart,” the boy answered. +
+ + +